1985

YALE

Yale College admits 2,186 of 10,937 applicants, an admission rate of 20.0 percent. Including, tuition, room, and board, the full cost of a year at Yale College is $15,020.

AIDS

The US Department of Defense announces that it will begin screening recruits for AIDS and that it will reject those who test positive.

Rock Hudson, an actor well-known for his work in film and television, discloses that he has AIDS. President Ronald Reagan, who has yet to utter the word “AIDS” in a public statement, calls Hudson at the hospital to wish him well. Hudson dies less than a year after his announcement; American media coverage of AIDS increases fourfold.

Scientists demonstrate that transmission of AIDS can be blocked by a condom during sexual intercourse.

Ryan White, a thirteen-year-old who contracted AIDS in the course of receiving treatment for hemophilia, is barred from attending classes at his middle school in Kokomo, Indiana.

By year’s end, a total of 15,527 cases and 12,529 deaths have been reported in the United States. Additionally, cases of AIDS have been reported in 51 countries across six continents.

Frank Moore wins a Bessie award for outstanding creative acheivement for Beehive, a film he made with Jim Self. That year, the film is shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Public Theater, and the Cinemateque Francaise, Paris, France.

1987

USA

Ronald Reagan, during a speech before the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, addresses Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, saying, “Tear down this wall!”

YALE

An editorial written by a New Haven resident appears in the Wall Street Journal exploring Yale’s reputation as a “gay school.” University president Benno Schmidt responds with a three-page letter to concerned alumni fundraisers, dismissing the article—which asserted that as much as twenty-five percent of the student body is gay—as “journalistic drivel” and ’’an extremely misleading picture of the student body.” Today, Yale retains its reputation as the “Gay Ivy,” while the “one in four” statistic continues to have currency among undergraduates.

Lesbian and Gay Studies Center established by a committee of faculty and staff chaired by Professor John Boswell .

AIDS

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves azidothymidine (AZT), the first and only antiretroviral drug designed to treat AIDS. Though Congress approves $30 million in emergency state funding for AZT, it remains the most expensive drug in history with a cost of $10,000/year/patient. Burroughs Wellcome, the drug’s manufacturer, will maintain a monopoly of AZT until 2004.

Larry Kramer (YC ’57), establishes the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) in New York City.

Journalist Randy Shilts publishes And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, chronicling the spread of the syndrome as the result of general indifference toward those whom it affected. Shilts, who had been diagnosed with AIDS while writing the book, will die of AIDS-related complications in 1994.

The US Congress passes the Helms Amendment, which bans the use of federal money to “promote or encourage, directly or indirectly, homosexual activities.”

By year’s end, a total of 50,378 cases and 40,849 deaths have been reported in the United States.

Terence Beirn joins the staff of the US Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources.

USA

The space shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after taking off on its tenth mission to outer space. All nine crewmembers, including school teacher Christa McAuliffe, are killed.

The Iran-Contra scandal breaks, revealing that senior officials in the Reagan administration conspired to arrange the illegal sale of arms to Iran in the hopes of securing the release of American hostages held there, while diverting proceeds of the sales to anticommunist rebels in Nicaragua.

YALE

Following the retirement of A. Bartlett Giamatti, Benno C. Schmidt, Jr. is named president of Yale University. Schmidt, a graduate of both Yale College and Yale Law School, leaves his job as Dean of Columbia Law School to take over as President of Yale. While president-elect, Schmidt adds the category of sexual orientation to the university’s non-discrimination policy.

AIDS

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) publishes a report criticizing the US government’s handling of the “national health crisis” and calling for a $2 billion investment in AIDS research and prevention.

President Ronald Reagan first mentions AIDS in a public address, in which he says that his administration is committed to finding a cure for the syndrome. Reagan’s budget for the same year calls for both a $10 million reduction in the Public Health Service’s (PHS) AIDS efforts and further cuts to Medicaid.

The PHS includes AIDS on its list of “dangerous contagious diseases,” restricting entry of PWAs into the United States and enabling immigration authorities to detain PWAs attempting to enter the country. The PHS will later mandate testing for all visa applicants.

Fashion designer Perry Ellis dies of an AIDS-related illness.

Activist Cleve Jones creates the first panel—dedicated to his friend Marvin Feldman— of what will become the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

By year’s end, a total of 28,712 cases and 24,559 deaths have been reported in the United States.

Jack Winkler graduates from St. Louis University. Upon graduating, he joined the Benedictine religious order, living first at St. Lawrence’s Abbey in Ampleforth, England, and then continuing at the St. Louis priory.

Charles Ludlam joins the Theater Company “Playhouse of the Ridiculous.”

John Tardino auditions and is selected to act in a mobile theater program funded by Urban Corps, a federal program to give students summer jobs in New York City. Later that year, he is selected for the Whiffenpoofs.

USA

May 4, 1970: Four students are killed and nine others wounded when National Guard troops open fire on a crowd of unarmed protestors on the campus of Kent State University. The escalation of the Vietnam War—now in its fourteenth year—is the focus of student demonstration around the country.

Yale

Various members of the Black Panther Party are tried in New Haven for the murder of a suspected FBI informant. In anticipation of massive demonstrations and civil unrest, President Nixon mobilizes thousands of National Guardsmen. Bombs are detonated at Ingalls Hockey Rink. Vice President Spiro Agnew calls for the resignation of university president Kingman Brewster for Brewster’s publicly expressing doubts about the Panthers’ ability to receive a fair trial.

Yale’s first Women’s Studies class—“Women in a Male Society”—is taught.

1971

Profiles

David Brudnoy begins his career in broadcast commentary and journalism.

Yale

Hanna Gray and Marian Wright Edelman are appointed to the Yale Corporation. They are the first women to sit on the university’s highest governing body.

Katherine Lustman is appointed master of Davenport College. She is the first woman to be master of a residential college.

The Homosexuality discussion group renames itself the Gay Alliance at Yale (GAY).

Partners Café opens.

1972

USA

February 21, 1972: President Richard Nixon travels to China, ending a quarter century of diplomatic estrangement between the United States and the People’s Republic. In less the six months, Nixon will become mired in the Watergate Scandal that will eventually result in his resignation.

In advance of a visit by Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State, William P. Rogers, Yale president Kingman Brewster—a vocal critic of the Vietnam War— publishes an editorial on the front page of the Yale Daily News affirming the university’s commitment to freedom of speech and asking antiwar protestors to respect Rogers’ presence on campus.

USA

April 4, 1975: Harvard dropout Bill Gates founds a company known as “Micro-soft.”

April 30, 1975: The People’s Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front capture Saigon, the capital city of South Vietnam, resulting in the end of the Vietnam War and the unification of Vietnam as a Communist state.

USA

Yale

Yale Women’s Center established.

The Yale Center for British Art opens its doors.

The Whitney Humanities Center is established.

1978

USA

November 27, 1978: Harvey Milk, elected earlier in 1978 to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors as the first gay man ever to hold public office in the United States, is assassinated by Dan White, a disgruntled former city supervisor.

Yale

JD McClatchy teaches “Homosexuality and Literature” (later renamed “The Literature of Ambivalence”) for the first time.

A. Bartlett Giamatti is named by the Yale Corporation as the university’s nineteenth president. Giamatti, who received both his B.A. and his Ph.D. from Yale, is a member of the comparative literature department and former master of Ezra Stiles College.

James Terrell becomes a founding partner of Hambrecht Terrell International.

USA

Following a series of minor earthquakes, Mount. St. Helens erupts in Washington State sending a column of smoke and ash 80,000 feet into the atmosphere and scattering debris through 11 states. The eruption causes the deaths of fifty-seven people and over a billion dollars in property damage.

Ronald Reagan is elected President.

John Lennon is assassinated in New York City by Mark David Chapman.

YALE

Yale Gay and Lesbian Cooperative founded.

Yale College admits 2,481 of 9,387 applicants, an admission rate of 26.4 percent. Including tuition, room, and board, the full cost of a year at Yale College is $9,110.

1981

Profiles

Christopher Kales temporarily withdraws from Rush Medical College to perform with the Theater Ballet of Canada in Ottawa.

David Brudnoy begins working for WGBH-TV in Boston, where he stays for five years.

USA

Sandra Day O’Connor is appointed the first-ever female Justice of the Supreme Court.

YALE

Women’s Studies approved as a major in Yale College.

AIDS

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) first reports on a rare form of pneumonia known as PCP (Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia) among a small group of young gay men in Los Angeles. Reports of similar cases quickly flood the CDC.

Soon after its publication of the first the report concerning PCP in gay men, the CDC receives additional reports of an aggressive form of cancer known as Kaposi’s sarcoma among gay men in New York and California. Kaposi’s sarcoma, which typically affects a minute fraction of men under 50, quickly becomes known as the “gay cancer.”

Following the first reports of AIDS cases, Dr. Mathilde Krim, an internist at the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, is one of the first scientists to comment on the disease’s potential socio-political consequences. Two years later, Krim founds the AIDS Medical Foundation to support private research efforts.

The New York Times first reports on a “rare cancer” affecting gay men. Subsequently, media reports on cancer affecting gay men attempt to draw connections between they gay lifestyle and the transmission of the disease.

By year’s end, a total of 159 cases of the disease are reported in the United States.

1982

USA

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Bearing the names of the 58,272 men and 8 women who died in the conflict, the wall of polished gabbro stone is added to the National Register of Historic Places on the same day.

YALE

GALA—Yale’s Gay and Lesbian Alumni association—is founded.

Gay and Lesbian Cooperative sponsors the first annual Gay and Lesbian Awareness Days.

Shortly after the CDC declares AIDS an epidemic, the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) is founded in New York City. At first an entirely volunteer organization, the GMHC dedicates itself to providing services to PWAs and establishes itself as a major advocate for research to combat the disease.

By year’s end, a total of 771 cases and 618 deaths have been reported in the United States.

1983

USA

United States military forces invade the island nation of Grenada in order to oust the revolutionary regime in favor of a constitutional government.

AIDS

A ward dedicated entirely to treating AIDS patients at San Francisco General Hospital is fully occupied within days of its opening.

GMHC co-founder Larry Kramer (YC ’57) publishes an article in the New York Native entitled “1,112 and Counting.” Highlighting the seeming powerlessness of the government and medical community in the face of a rapidly growing epidemic, Kramer calls for “anger, rage, fury, and action” in the gay community. “Our continued existence,” he writes, “depends on just how angry you can get.”

The People With AIDS self-empowerment movement is established during the National Lesbian/Gay Health Conference in Denver, Colorado. Rejecting the labels of “victim” and “patient,” a group of activists drafts the “Denver Principles,” which outline recommendations to people without AIDS, advice to healthcare providers, and a list of rights for People With AIDS (PWA).

Lambda Legal and the GMHC file the first-ever AIDS discrimination lawsuit when Dr. Joseph Sonnabend’s New York-based practice specializing in the treatment of AIDS patients is threatened with eviction from its building.

The CDC first identifies female sexual partners of men with AIDS as an “at risk” category.

By year’s end, a total of 2,807 cases and 2,118 deaths have been reported in the United States.

USA

YALE

AIDS

Scientists determine that AIDS is caused by a previously unknown retrovirus, later named the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).

Writing for the National Review, William F. Buckley, Jr. (YC ’50) states, “Everyone detected with AIDS should be tattooed on the upper forearm, to protect common needle-users, and on the buttocks to prevent the victimization of other homosexuals.”

Municipal authorities in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York order the closing of bathhouses as venues for high-risk sexual activity.

In conjunction with the World Health Organization (WHO), the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) host the first international conference on AIDS in Atlanta, Georgia.

By year’s end, a total of 7,239 cases and 5,596 deaths have been reported in the United States.

USA

British computer scientist Timothy Berners-Lee, an employee at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), writes a proposal for an information management system known as the “World Wide Web.”

The Berlin Wall—having stood for nearly thirty years as a symbol of the sharp divisions of the Cold War— is opened. Thousands of East Berliners stream westward and the process of German reunification begins.

AIDS

Renowned photographer Robert Mapplethorpe dies of an AIDS-related illness.

Members of ACT UP infiltrate the New York Stock Exchange where they stage a protest against Burroughs Wellcome, the sole manufacturer of AZT. Days later, the annual cost per patient of AZT drops 20 percent.

The US Congress creates the National Commission on AIDS.

By year’s end, a total of 117,508 cases and 89,343 deaths have been reported in the United States.

Profiles

USA

One day after the resignation of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union is formally dissolved. The event marks the end both to the world’s first and largest Communist state and to the Cold War itself.

AIDS

Professional basketball player Earvin “Magic” Johnson announces that he is HIV-positive.

Queen front man Freddie Mercury dies of an AIDS related illness.

By year’s end, a total of 206,563 cases and 156,143 deaths have been reported in the United States. In the same year, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates at 110 million people are infected with AIDS worldwide.

1992

Profiles

Paul Monette publishes his memoir Becoming a Man, which wins the 1992 National Book Award for non-fiction.

USA

Four Los Angeles police officers charged in the beating of Rodney King are acquitted. In response, rioting overtakes much of south central Los Angeles, resulting in fifty-three dead and more than two thousand injured.

AIDS

Mary Fisher and Elizabeth Glaser—both HIV-positive—address the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, respectively.

Florida teenager Ricky Ray dies of an AIDS-related illness. Ricky and his two brothers, Robert and Randy (both HIV-positive), had become the focus of national media attention in 1987 when their home was burned down following their victory in a court battle to attend their public school.

Actor Anthony Perkins dies of an AIDS-related illness.

Professional tennis player Arthur Ashe announces publicly that he is HIV-positive. Ashe will die of a related illness in 1993.

Fashion icon Tina Chow dies of an AIDS-related illness.

AIDS is identified as the number one cause of death in American men, ages 25-44.

By year’s end, a total of 254,157 cases and 194,476 deaths have been reported in the United States.

1993

Profiles

Michael Palm retires from his company Center Re, devoting himself fully to philanthropy.

USA

President Bill Clinton signs “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” into law, prohibiting openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual persons from serving in the U.S. military.

Terrorists detonate a bomb in a subterranean parking lot beneath the World Trade Center in New York City. Six are killed and more than one thousand injured.

YALE

Richard C. Levin is appointed president of the university. A Stanford-trained economist with a Ph.D. from Yale, Levin will step down as president in the summer of 2013.

The Women’s Table, commemorating the presence of women at the university, is installed in front of Sterling Memorial Library. The designer is Yale College graduate Maya Lin, who gained national fame in 1981 with her design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

AIDS

President Bill Clinton (YLS ’73), creates a White House Office of National AIDS Policy. In the same year, President Clinton signs an AIDS immigration exclusion policy into law.

Dancer Rudolf Nureyev dies of an AIDS-related illness.

Philadelphia, starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington, becomes one of the first mainstream films to acknowledge HIV/AIDS. Hanks wins an Academy Award for Best Actor his portrayal of an HIV-positive gay man.

Tony Kushner receives both a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize for his play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.

By year’s end, a total of 360,909 cases and 234,225 deaths have been reported in the United States.

USA

Bill Clinton is re-elected President.

AIDS

AIDS is no longer the leading cause of death among all Americans, ages 25-44. For the first time, however, researchers report a larger proportion of AIDS cases among African Americans than among whites.

The FDA approves the first home test for HIV.

The AIDS Memorial Quilt, displayed in its entirety, covers the National Mall in Washington, DC.

Dr. David Ho, a pioneer in aggressive AIDS treatment techniques, is names Time’s “Man of the Year.”

The number of Americans dying annually from AIDS-related illnesses declines substantially due to new “combination therapies” that allow AZT to treat AIDS in tandem with other drugs.

A years-long clinical study reveals that needle exchange programs can reduce HIV infection rates by up to two thirds.

By year’s end, a total of 581,429 cases and 362,004 deaths have been reported in the United States.

1997

Profiles

Jim Brudner has an exhibition of his photographs of rural America at La MaMa Gallery in New York.

By year’s end, a total of 641,086 cases and 390,692 deaths have been reported in the United States.

1998

USA

News of the Monica Lewinsky scandal is first reported in the mainstream media. Though President Clinton will admit to lying about his sexual relations with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, he will survive the ensuing impeachment process.

Matthew Shepard, an openly gay student at the University of Wyoming, dies from head injuries sustained in an attack motivated by his sexuality.

AIDS

The CDC reports that African Americans account for nearly 50 percent of AIDS-related deaths in the United States. AIDS-related mortality rates outstrip white mortality AIDS-related mortality rates by a factor of ten to one.

Congress passes the Ricky Ray Hemophilia Relief Fund Act, which authorizes compensation for hemophiliacs infected with HIV as the result of unscreened clotting agents between 1982 and 1987.

Despite proof offered by HHS showing that needle exchange programs do not encourage illegal drug use, the Clinton administration fails to lift the ban on federal funding for such programs.

Following reports of the highly disproportionate effect of HIV and AIDS on the their communities, African American leaders urge the President to declare a “state of emergency.” Congress responds with the Minority AIDS initiative, which provides over $150 million for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention in minority communities.

By year’s end, a total of 688,200 cases and 410,800 deaths have been reported in the United States.

Profiles

Michael Palm dies from AIDS-related heart com­pli­ca­tions at his home in Tel­luride, Col­orado, at age 47.

1999

PROFILES

USA

The United States formally relinquishes control over the Panama Canal.

Thirteen students and teachers die in the Columbine High School shooting in Columbine, CO.

YALE

Yale College admits 2,522 of 12,620 applicants, an admission rate of 20 percent. Including tuition, room, and board, a year at Yale College costs $31,940.

AIDS

The WHO identifies HIV/AIDS as the fourth leading cause of death worldwide and the primary cause of death in Africa. 30 million people are believed to be living with HIV worldwide; some 14 million have died of AIDS-related illnesses.

In nearly 27 countries, HIV infection rates have nearly doubled since the mid-1990s. The vast majority of people with HIV live in the developing world, which also experiences the vast majority of AIDS-related deaths.

Women now account for nearly a quarter of AIDS cases in the US, up from just seven percent in 1985.

By year’s end, a total of 733,374 cases and 429,825 deaths have been reported in the United States.

George Chauncey is awarded the first Brudner Prize by Yale University, established by Jim Brudner to honor “an accomplished scholar or activist whose work has made significant contributions to the understanding of LGBT issues or furthered the tolerance of LGBT people.”

AIDS

In recognition for her pioneering medical research and AIDS activism, Dr. Mathilde Krim is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The thirteenth annual International AIDS Conference is held in Durban, South Africa, emphasizing the global nature of the epidemic.

Under the leadership of US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the United Nations declares AIDS a threat to global peace and security. In the same year, President Clinton calls AIDS a threat to national security and Congress authorizes $600 million in federal money to combat AIDS worldwide.

By year’s end, a total of 774,467 cases and 448,060 deaths have been reported in the United States.

2001

PROFILES

David Brudnoy establishes The David Brudnoy Fund for AIDS Research managed out of Massachusetts General Hospital. That same year, he becomes a brohter of Phi Alpha Tau, a communicative arts fraternity for which he was a mentor.

USA

Hijacking commercial airplanes, terrorists carry out suicide attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, VA on September 11. A fourth plane, meant to attack a target in Washington, DC, crashes in rural Pennsylvania as the result of a passenger revolt. Nearly 3,000 people die.

A US-led coalition invades Afghanistan to apprehend Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, and to topple the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist regime that harbored him. Though the Taliban is quickly driven from power, bin Laden will elude authorities for another ten years.

AIDS

February seventh is the first Annual Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

Research shows that AIDS is spreading rapidly through Russia and Eastern Europe, with an estimated 250,000 new infections in 2001 alone.

June 5 marks the twentieth anniversary of the first-ever reported case of AIDS.

2002

USA

The US Department of Homeland Security is created.

Ten people are killed during the Beltway sniper attacks.

AIDS

The Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS reports that HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa and fourth largest killer worldwide. Among individuals aged 15-59, HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death worldwide.

Botswana initiates a national AIDS treatment program. It is the first African country to do so.

The UN estimates that half of all adults worldwide living with HIV/AIDS are women.

Profiles

After mostly win­ning a sev­en­teen-year bat­tle with AIDS, Frank Moore dies at the age of 48.

2007

PROFILES

USA

Democrat Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives.

AIDS

The CDC estimates that there have been more than 560,000 AIDS-related deaths in the United States since 1981.

Timothy Brown (also known as the “Berlin Patient”) becomes the fist person to be cured of AIDS as the result of a bone marrow transplant intended to treat his leukemia. Further testing in 2011 confirms that the virus is no longer present in his body.

2008

USA

Barack Hussein Obama, a democrat, is elected the forty-fourth President of the United States. He is the first African-American to hold this office.

Crude oil prices reach the record high of $147 per barrel.

AIDS

The CDC determines that infection rates in the United States are substantially higher than previously estimated. There are 56,000 new cases of HIV every year in the U.S.

While allocating nearly $50 million to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, President Bush also lifts the blanket ban on HIV-positive travelers to the United States.

2009

USA

Michael Jackson, the legendary “King of Pop,” dies.

Sonia Sotomayor is sworn in as the first Latino justice of the United States Supreme Court.

AIDS

The District of Columbia Health Department reports an incidence of HIV of greater than three percent—making the rate of infection in the nation’s capital greater than that of West Africa. AIDS in Washington, DC is described as a “severe and generalized epidemic.”

U.S. Congress does away with the long-standing ban on the use of federal money for needle exchanges.

2010

USA

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the policy which banned gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, is repealed.

AIDS

President Obama signs into law the Affordable Care Act, increasing access to healthcare for those with chronic medical conditions such as HIV. The Obama administration also unveils the first National HIV/AIDS Strategy for the United States.

PROFILES

Edit

PROFILES

The Yale AIDS Memorial Project, (YAMP) is an alumni-led ini­tia­tive to honor and doc­u­ment the lives of hun­dreds of men and women from the Uni­ver­sity who per­ished dur­ing the AIDS epi­demic. Learn more about YAMP at http://www.yaleaidsmemorialproject.org.